All Posts by Jerry Hildenbrand

We just heard from a Sprint ninja that Gingerbread for the Samsung Epic 4G should begin a slow rollout tomorrow (Nov 9). The initial plan is to get it out to three percent of the users the first day, which should avoid any huge fiasco like we saw with the Froyo update. The update will continue to slowly roll out over the following eight days, until it gets to 100 percent of the users.
As we...

Republic Wireless has been making waves the past couple of days with their new spin on the way a carrier works. The plan is pure genius:
Buy an LG Optimus One and the first month's service for $199
Enter all the Wifi AP information for where you live, work, and play
Get unlimited voice, texts, and data for $19 a month
What's not to love, right? On paper it seems the perfect solution...

Thanks to the talent and hard work of our very own AC Developer Beezy, we've been playing with Ice Cream Sandwich on the Nexus S for a while now. One of the cool things that caught our eye recently was the native themeing of the stock Android keyboard. Built into ICS is a keyboard theme engine and six native themes. Granted, the "stock" themes aren't exactly mind-blowing, but they do offer...

It looks to be a very nice Q4 if you're a Verizon customer and an Android fan. Three hot new phones are coming out, and if you're due for an upgrade (or finagle things around so you can get a new phone -- I've been there!) you'll have a choice to make. Do you choose the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and its Nexusy goodness, the Motorola Droid RAZR and its industrial design, or the HTC Rezound with...

Everyone is getting into the 720p display game it seems, and Sony Ericsson is no exception. The Xperia Arc HD (formerly known by it's Nozomi code name) has finally shown up on camera, and it's a stunner. We don't know the specifications just yet, but the juicy bits have been revealed -- 1.5GHz dual-core CPU, 1GB RAM, front facing camera, Android 2.3.5, and of course the 4.3-inch 720p HD...

Courts in Germany have found in favor of Motorola in two cases of patent infringement by Apple. These are the same types of proceedings that Apple has used to get Samsung products pulled from shelves and show floors in the past, and the current documents from Germany look to affect all Apple mobile products, and have enabled damages that go back to April 2003. But let's not get too excited...

Gentlemen, start your engines! Need for Speed Hot Pursuit is now available in the Android Market. No longer an exclusive for the Xperia Play, the latest in the Need for Speed series, Hot pursuit promises racing action from the perspective of both sides -- the pursuer and the pursued. Play as a scofflaw in one of the exotic super cars like the Pagani Zonda Cinque, or be Johnny Law in your high...

Bazinga. The Qualcomm chip in the T-Mobile Galaxy S II has been overclocked to 1.8GHz, and as far as we know nothing has caught fire and no fuzzy animals have been harmed. The Hercules is the oddball of the Samsung Galaxy S II line, using a different chipset to achieve those rocking 42 M/sec HSPA+ speeds, and many feared there would be little developer interest in the handset. It looks like...

image credit schmidling.com
The Spanish courts have decided against Apple, Inc. in its design patent dispute with NT-K, a small tablet manufacturer in Spain. Using the same arguments that have been partially upheld in Germany, and dismissed in the Netherlands, Apple brought an import ban and subsequent lawsuit against the small OEM, had their company placed in a European list of "pirated...

Like to fish? Love your Android phone? Me, too. I recently checked out My Fishing Companion and came away really pleased. It tackles (pardon the pun) the problem apps designed for fishermen seem to all have in common -- nobody wants to enter info on a touchscreen phone while out fishing -- by allowing you to set everything up beforehand, and having a one-click solution for things like...

We just told you guys the other day that Verizon was ready to push out Gingerbread to the OG 7-inch Galaxy Tab, and it looks like they have flipped the switch -- OTA's are now rolling out. With all the new and shiny Android tablets getting built, it's nice to see the 7-incher wasn't forgotten by Big Red. A refresher:
The update is to Android 2.3.5 and will bring:
Improved security for the...

An OTA for the Lenovo ThinkPad (see our hands-on) went out for a while today, included was a firmware update for the battery. Lenovo says they have halted the update, but just in case -- use the OEM power supply and cable while applying. According to the official Lenovo support forums:
Battery firmware update was included in the OTA released today. The battery firmware update is applied...

If you use Google Reader to make all your RSS feeds a little more sane organized, be ready for a pleasant surprise. Google has begun the rollout of the new look and feel for the reader website, and everyone should expect it by this evening. Go on and hit F5 for a while, we'll wait (have to admit, I did just that). The new look lines up with the rest of the updated Google service websites,...

With all the Google TV news the past few days, we wanted to let you guys know about Redux. Back at Google I/O Redux was featured by Google as something Google TV was all about -- quality content you can view right in your living room via Google TV. Their HTML 5 app has been in the GTV spotlight (Google's app picks for the Google TV platform) for a while, and to be ready for the Honeycomb...

If the internal procured by MobileSyrup are correct, Rogers subscribers will have a pair of hot new phones to check out next week -- the Galaxy S Glide is slated for a Nov. 3 launch, and the MotoRAZR shows up the next day on Nov. 4. The Glide packs a 4-inch Super AMOLED display, a 1.2 GHz processor, and a full sliding qwerty keyboard, and our Canadian office (hey Chris!) is itching to have a...

HTC has made the Gingerbread kernel source for the EVO Shift 4G, HTC Thunderbolt, and Droid Incredible available for download on their developer center website. As always, unless you're a kernel developer or ROM chef, this won't do too much for you -- other than build anticipation for the awesome new flashables that will be coming soon for these three.
Devs, have at it. And don't be afraid to...

According to the Italian blog Android.HD, Samsung has confirmed that they will be providing the Ice Cream Sandwich update to their latest top-tier devices. Phones and tablets set to get a bit of the latest tasty treat are:
Galaxy S II
Galaxy Note
Galaxy Tab 10.1
Galaxy Tab 8.9
Galaxy Tab 7.7
Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus
This is a pretty obvious list, and we came up with something...

Several days ago we (and likely many others) were contacted about a potentially serious security issue with Dolphin Browser. Apparently, quite a bit of information about your browsing session, including URL data for secure websites and search strings, was being forwarded to a remote server -- http://en.mywebzines.com. We tore things apart and verified it, sure enough, it was happening and we...

Update: Nirvana328 lets us know that Logitech's cleared this one up in its forums, saying:
These boxes are just the regular boxes you have now and DO NOT have the 3.1 android update on them.
These boxes are not suppose to be released onto store floors until the update is officially released for everyone.
If a store is selling these boxes (it is just an added sticker on the box. Nothing else...

Market research firm IDC has named Carrier IQ -- a name that provokes a cringe or two -- one of the "companies to watch" for analytics groups under $100 million in revenue. Because it sells away data about your phone use -- telling your carrier what apps you use, how you use them, and when you use them -- we don't like it much around these parts. It's sneaky -- and sneaky is bad. How the...

Portions of this page are modifications based on work created and shared by the Android Open Source Project
and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution License. AndroidCentral is an independent site
that is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google.